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Research on radicalization became relevant to the study of terrorism and violent extremism just two decades ago. The accumulated empirical data on terrorism have led researchers and experts to understand that radicalization is a predictor of violent actions by terrorists, violent extremists, and lone actors. Violent incidents committed by school shooters are not terrorist crimes, but there is good reasons for inclusion as terrorist crimes since they have similar mechanisms. The article aims to create a conceptual model of school-shooter radicalization and determine the distinguishing features of the process. The paper presents a theoretical and methodological base of content analysis concepts, political models, and terrorist radicalization on the different levels of study. Based on the content analysis results, we identify the significant gaps in the research field, consider the radicalization phenomenon in detail, substantiated the qualitative aspects of the school shooters radicalization, and propose a conceptual scheme. Psychological, behavioral, cognitive aspects of the school shooters radicalization reflect a holistic picture of the relationship between the process phases and changes in the parameters of the object's state. The aspects of radicalization and this phenomenon's qualitative properties are interpreted as the determinants of the conceptual model. The model includes five stages, each of which is considered to be one of the components for the formation and acceptance of the idea of a violent way to solve a problem, but certainly do not act individually as the only component that leads to the actual implementation of the incident of a school shooting. An in-depth study of online social connections and warning signs, mobilization factors, behavioral trajectories, and imitation mechanisms can help scientists understand why school shooters are increasingly motivated to use violent means to achieve personal goals. We have outlined the possibilities and prospects of the model's application and directions for future research.

Background/Objectives: In the 21st century, the world was faced with increased outbreaks of extremism and terrorism, being completely unprepared neither in terms of the practical combating these phenomena, nor in terms of their theoretical conceptualization. Methods: This article attempts to analyze comprehensively the extremism phenomenon in order to clarify the reasons of specific international focus on this phenomenon and the prospects of international rule-making in this area based on the analysis of the existing international legal acts and documents adopted by various international forums with the participation of the UN member states, and using doctrinal approaches. The study includes a broad legal framework and analysis of foreign policy initiatives in this regard. Findings: The analysis has shown that the above documents are increasingly dealing with the problem of combating extremism in the context of anti-terrorism efforts. Recently, the counter-extremism problem has been treated as a separate challenge to the international safety. The above documents are increasingly dealing with the problem of combating extremism in the context of anti-terrorism efforts. Recently, the counter-extremism problem has been treated as a separate challenge to the international safety. Moreover, the phenomenon of extremism takes various forms, primarily, the form of 'violent extremism'. Extremism is a complex and multidimensional phenomenon affecting the legal, social, political and economic elements. The uniqueness of the article is increased due to the lack of a comprehensive analysis of the 'extremism' phenomenon as a threat to the international peace and security. In this connection, it is reasonable to unify and harmonize approaches to combating extremism. Application/ Improvements: International counter-extremism cooperation and multidisciplinary studies of this phenomenon are associated with the prospects of scientific development of the 'extremism' concept and determination of its qualifying features for the entire international community to be universally accepted.

The re-configuring of war -- The dawn of a risk age : from cold warriors to risk managers -- Forging the link : risk management goes to war -- The Kosovo campaign : war as a risk management exercise -- The Afghan campaign and the War on Terrorism : risk management vindicated? -- War on Iraq : textbook risk management or flawed strategy -- The rise and fall of war as risk management?

This contribution questions the claim often made in scholarship that the right to self-determination would prevent military assistance at the request of the recognised government during a civil war. Specifically, it argues that the absence of any explicit reliance on the right to self-determination in the reactions of states to military assistance on request of the recognised government, suggests that there is no rule in general international law prohibiting such assistance during a civil war. In so doing, the contribution first outlines the implications of such state conduct from the perspective of opinio juris. Thereafter it illuminates why this conduct can also not be convincingly explained by the existence of counter-terrorism and counter-intervention exceptions to a general prohibition of military assistance during a civil war. ; (VLID)5120893 ; Version of record

Understanding how terrorist networks are created and how individuals turn into extremism and then into terrorism is a current subject of interest and a cross-domain research problem since it involves scholars from political sciences, sociology, physics and computer scientists among others. In this paper, an agent-based approach is used to simulate the process of radicalization and creation of a terrorist network, and the link between both processes. Each citizen has several attributes allowing the model to take into account heterogeneous profiles of individual. Furthermore, we model the social transfer that takes place during the interaction of individuals in order to understand how cultural ideas are transmitted. This paper also provides a non-exhaustive but detailed survey of the state of the art on the agent-based terrorist networks modelling.

As political advisor to Syrian President Bashar el-Assad, Bouthaina Shaaban is no doubt the most powerful woman in Syria. She granted an exclusive interview to Frederic Pichon, her first ever in the French media. In 2011, when the crisis broke out, many observers expected that she would mark her distance with President Assad and even openly break with him. This did not happen. In fact, she was chosen to accompany the Syrian delegation to the two conferences in Geneva, in 2012 and 2013. First and foremost a proponent of her country's sovereignty, Mrs. Shaaban continues to believe in a political solution. She calls for dialogue with external players, notably the major powers, who should return to the path of diplomacy and, she explains, join Damascus in the fight against terrorism. Adapted from the source document.

Tourism is very sensitive to events that could trouble what is normal from a natural, economic, political and social point of view in the tourists' countries, in the countries they visit, and in the countries of transit. Consequently, the economic crises, the military, social or ethnical conflicts, the natural disasters, the terrorism acts and the negative publicity following them bring serious damage to the tourist activity in the areas where they are produced. The present work emphasises the perception of Romanian and Italian hotel managers of these phenomena that have an impact on tourism, using a comparative approach. In order to reach this objective, we have applied the questionnaire as a research instrument, with the help of which we have gathered the primary data, which were processed using the SPSS software.

The continuing expansion of Pakistan's and India's nuclear capabilities, and major differences between the countries' force structures and defence policies, create ever greater concern about an intensifying nuclear arms race in South Asia. Pakistan's prospective introduction of tactical nuclear weapons increases the chance that a nuclear exchange will occur if a conflict breaks out, perhaps sparked by an act of terrorism. In addressing this strategic instability, India and Pakistan could learn from a comparison of their rivalry with NATO-Soviet competition during the Cold War. The analogy is somewhat problematic -- particularly because India's nuclear posture is cast as primarily shaped by competition with China -- but there are important similarities between the contests that shed light on the development of India's and Pakistan's nuclear policies. Adapted from the source document.

'Legal cultures' in European countries have been under the twin pressures of moves towards 'European and international standards' on the one hand, and the 'war on terror' on the other—the first exerting pressure in a liberal direction, the second exerting pressure in an authoritarian direction. Data from focus groups and interviews with the general public and Muslim minorities provide insight into how the public in general, and Muslims in particular, have responded to the pressure of terrorism and the 'war on terror' in a spectrum of five countries ranging across Europe. Muslims have very different attitudes towards paying the price of the so-called 'war on terror', but our study suggests that attitudes towards that price are directly influenced more by 'risk assessment' than by religion.

Enthält Rezensionen u.a. von: Understanding September 11 / ed. by Craig Calhoun. Project coord. by the Social Science Research Council. New York/N.Y. : New Press, 2002. - 454 S

This book focuses on contemporary maritime security in the South China Sea as well as its connected sea area, the Straits of Malacca and Singapore. It examines security issues concerning the safety of navigation, crackdown on transnational crimes including sea piracy and maritime terrorism, and conflict prevention and resolution. It also covers non-traditional security such as maritime environmental security, and search and rescue at sea.

Ponencia recogida en las actas de los Cursos de Derecho Internacional y Relaciones Internacionales de Vitoria-Gasteiz organizados por la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad del País Vasco. ; El objetivo de este trabajo es abordar el vínculo existente entre terrorismo y derechos humanos como términos constitutivos de un mismo binomio, o como par de conceptos jurídicos equilibrados. Para ello resulta necesario analizar, aunque sea en el marco delimitado por el título de esta contribución, es decir en el Consejo de Europa y en la Unión Europea (UE), dos cuestiones recurrentes de naturaleza bien distinta. La primera tiene que ver con las dificultades conceptuales, de definición y de uso, que plantean las nociones de terrorismo y derechos humanos, insistiendo en particular en la aportación que en este sentido ofrece el Consejo de Europa y en los desarrollos normativos e institucionales acontecidos en la UE. La segunda cuestión se refiere a las consecuencias del desplazamiento del eje conceptual del binomio terrorismo-derechos humanos desde la legalidad a la legitimidad internacional, profundizando en la reacción que este giro ha provocado en la Asamblea Parlamentaria y el Tribuna Europeo de Derechos Humanos, y en la respuesta, entre la aquiescencia y la contestación, articulada por la UE. En suma, se trataría de discernir si tanto el Consejo de Europa como la UE ofrecen marcos útiles de referencia para que, en la búsqueda del equilibrio en el binomio terrorismo-derechos humanos, Europa deje de ser parte del problema y devenga, por fin, en parte de la solución. ; The aim of this paper is to address the linkage between terrorism and human rights as constituent elements of the same binomial, or as a couple of legal concepts. This requires to analysis, albeit within the framework defined by the title of this contribution, i.e the Council of Europe and the European Union (EU), two issues with a quite different nature. The first has to do with the difficulties on the definition and use of the notions of terrorism and human rights, with particular emphasis on the contribution that on this regard offers the Council of Europe and the institutional and legal changes developed in the EU. The second question concerns the consequences of the displacement of the binomial terrorism-human rights since the legality towards the international legitimacy, the reaction this shift has resulted in the Parliamentary Assembly and the European Court of Human Rights, and the answer given by the EU. In short, the final purpose would be to think about whether both the Council of Europe and the EU offer useful frameworks to counterbalance, in a proper and definitive way, terrorism and human rights.